Brownback signs rural opportunities bill

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Gov. Sam Brownback stopped in three Kansas counties and at a university campus Monday for ceremonial signings of Senate Bill 198, also known as the Rural Opportunity Zones (ROZs) bill. Members of the Governor's Growth Team, state legislators, local elected leaders and college students joined Brownback.

"As part of our Road Map for Kansas, the Rural Opportunity Zone legislation is an aggressive policy move targeted to grow our shrinking rural counties," Brownback said in a news release. "Like the Homestead Act, this offers opportunity instead of handpicking winners and losers. Innovative efforts like these will help to grow the Kansas economy."

The new law designates 50 counties as Rural Opportunity Zones, provides an income tax exemption for people who move to those counties from out of state and authorizes the counties to participate in a state-matching program to repay student loans of up to $15,000 for qualifying students who move into the ROZ counties.

"ROZs are an innovative use of the state's tax structure to encourage people to move back to areas of the state that have been struggling with population loss. Governor Brownback's creative approaches such as this will help ensure all of Kansas prospers," Secretary of Revenue Nick Jordan said in the release.

Most of the counties have experienced more than 10 percent population loss during the last 10 years.

"We need to reverse the dramatic population declines that rural Kansas has experienced. Creating Rural Opportunity Zones gives the state a powerful incentive to promote the state, bring people back to rural areas and spark economic growth," Secretary of Commerce Pat George said.

The counties designated by SB 198 as ROZ are: Barber, Chautauqua, Cheyenne, Clark, Cloud, Comanche, Decatur, Edwards, Elk, Gove, Graham, Greeley, Greenwood, Hamilton, Harper, Hodgeman, Jewell, Kearny, Kingman, Kiowa, Lane, Lincoln, Logan, Marion, Mitchell, Morton, Ness, Norton, Osborne, Pawnee, Phillips, Pratt, Rawlins, Republic, Rooks, Rush, Russell, Scott, Sheridan, Sherman, Smith, Stafford, Stanton, Trego, Thomas, Wallace, Washington, Wichita, Wilson and Woodson.

Bourbon County's population has fallen 3.2 percent in the period from April 2000-July 2009, information released by the U.S. Census Bureau says. The county's 2009 population estimate, according to the Census Bureau's website, is 14,884. Ten years ago, the population was estimated at 15,379, a 495-person decrease, the site said.

According to website information, Linn County declined 2.5 percent; Cherokee lost 6.8 percent of its population; Anderson, 2.9 percent; Allen, 8.2 percent; Neosho, 5.6 percent; Greenwood, 13.1 percent; Woodson, 14.5 percent; Wilson, 8.3 percent; Elk, 8 percent; and Chataqua, 14.1 percent.

On the Net:

http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/20/20011.html

http://factfinder2.census.gov/main.html